


necrosis

by shadowcat500



Series: Plaguetober 2020 [24]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Gore, Plague Doctors, Plaguetober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27180280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowcat500/pseuds/shadowcat500
Summary: Hardrada is presented with a patient afflicted with a curse.
Series: Plaguetober 2020 [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948417
Kudos: 1





	necrosis

**Author's Note:**

> 24/10 Curse

The patient is one of a small group of adventurers, brought in on the shoulders of two of their friends. The third is the one to tell Hardrada and her new apprentice what’s wrong.

“It all started in a dungeon, Doctor. Ae’d said some things about not feeling too well, but we all thought it was just some spider poison that would wear off by the time we left, but then ae jumped in front of a necrotic mage’s-”

Hardrada moves over to Take the unconscious adventurer’s temperature. “Necrotic mage? Is that another term for a necromancer, or a flesh mage?”

“Uhm, a kind of flesh mage, I think? They were yelling about it when Rodan shot an arrow through their chest and they were bleeding out. I think-”  
Hardrada’s apprentice pulls off the adventurer’s gloves (the blood on aer gloves is enough of a biohazard to be a threat, even in the kind of operating room that can’t always be clean), to be met with the shock of their life. Hardrada feels her stomach roll at the sight, and the adventurer who had been explaining the event’s face goes a chalky white. Hardara shoves a bucket in front of their face just in time to catch the vomit.

“ _Star’s Grace…_ ”

The adventurer on the table’s flesh is a rotten black, water oozing from the uncomfortably squishy tissue that is still partially stuck to the gloves. Halfway between rotting and melted, the blackened flesh sloughing off as her apprentice pulls the gloves further off. Hardrada’s only seen a description of this once, on a page of a textbook she’d picked up at a secondhand shop in the city.

“This was… the work of a mage, correct?”

The upright adventurer shakily nods. 

“Then we’ll be needing a mage to fix it. If you can, prepare a horse to go to the Goldpeak University, the Goldpeak Temple if you can’t find any available mages. Tell them there’s a case of necrotic cursing in Hawksmoor, and we urgently need their help. Tell one of your friends to go, if you can’t make the ride yourself. Go!”

They nod their head and bolt out of the door, escaping what must be an awful smell. Hardrada is more glad than she’s ever been for the herbs in her mask as she turns back to her apprentice.

The apprentice has pulled the gloves all the way off and cut the sleeves off, showing the extent of the rotting curse reaching around halfway up the forearms. Good: ae won’t be losing too much. Her apprentice looks up at her and gestured with gloved hands at the body, silently asking what the plan is.

“Amputation, no doubt. The dead flesh is lost already, so there’s no point keeping it.” She begins to pull out the knives and bonesaw she uses for amputations, when there is no other choice and the affected area must be removed. “Removing the source will hold it back for a few hours, but it’ll be back soon enough from another area. We have to hurry.”

**Author's Note:**

> really should've used this one on the 20th, huh
> 
> I have the pieces for the 26th-28th written in advance, so there shouldn't be delays on those three
> 
> Check out my [ tumblr](https://existentialcrisisetcetera.tumblr.com/tagged/zach%20writes)!
> 
> Comments and kudos appreciated!


End file.
